The number you have to clear is 680 días de UMA a month, free of encumbrances, over the last six months. At the UMA in force since 1 February 2026 that is $79,770.80 pesos a month. Every dollar figure you have read for a residente temporal visa — for Mérida, Mexico or anywhere else in the country — is that multiple converted at a rate somebody chose on a day, and it is only as current as the page it sits on.
Learn the multiple. Then go and read your own consulate’s page, and use the arithmetic below to work out when its number was last computed. That single check is worth more than any summary of “the 2026 requirements”, because it tells you whether the page you are relying on has been touched since the UMA changed.
Checked on 2 September 2026.
Where 680 comes from
The Lineamientos generales para la expedición de visas, published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación under código 5763837, set the economic solvency test for a temporary residence visa in words:
“Original de los documentos que demuestren que cuenta con empleo o pensión con ingresos mensuales libres de gravámenes mayores al equivalente de seiscientos ochenta días en UMA durante los últimos seis meses.”
Seiscientos ochenta — six hundred and eighty. Three things in that sentence do work, and each one refuses someone every week:
“empleo o pensión” — employment or pension. Not rental yield, not dividends, not a portfolio drawdown you generate by selling something. If your money is not employment or a pension, you are looking at the savings test instead, and that is a different post.
“libres de gravámenes” — free of encumbrances. The figure is what reaches you clean, not what your employer or pension provider gross-pays before deductions.
“durante los últimos seis meses” — over the last six months. Not last month. Not an average you construct. Six consecutive months, each of them clearing the bar.
The arithmetic, in one table
The UMA is republished by INEGI each January and takes effect on 1 February. For 2026, INEGI set it at $117.31 pesos a day, up 3.69% from $113.14.
| Multiple | × 2026 UMA | In force | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Temporal, monthly income | 680 días de UMA | $79,770.80 pesos/month | 1 Feb 2026 – 31 Jan 2027 |
| Temporal, average balance | 11,460 días de UMA | $1,344,372.60 pesos | 1 Feb 2026 – 31 Jan 2027 |
Write both down. The left column is permanent until the Lineamientos change; the right column has an expiry date you already know. The February reset is the post about living with that.
What your consulate prints, and how to test it
Your consulate does not ask you for pesos. It publishes a figure in local currency and applies that. This is where the same federal rule stops being the same number.
On 2 September 2026 the Consulate of Mexico in Tucson published, on its temporary residency page last updated 31 December 2025, a monthly income requirement of over $4,393 USD and an average monthly balance of over $73,215 USD across twelve months.
Now do the division, because it is the only useful thing you can do with a consulate’s dollar figure:
$4,393 ÷ 680 = $6.46 per día de UMA.
Against a UMA of $117.31 pesos, $6.46 implies a rate of about 18.2 pesos to the dollar. Against the 2025 UMA of $113.14, it implies about 17.5. The page carries a date of 31 December 2025 — a month before the 2026 UMA took effect. Draw your own conclusion about which UMA it was computed from; the point is that you can now tell, from arithmetic, rather than guessing.
Run the same division on the savings figure and it does not land in the same place: $73,215 ÷ 11,460 = $6.39. Two figures on one page, two implied rates. That is not a scandal — it is what happens when a table is maintained by hand — but it is exactly why this site refuses to publish “the 2026 dollar requirement” as though there were one.
Do this for your own consulate before you book. Divide its income figure by 680. If the result times 18-ish does not land near $117.31, the page is quoting an older UMA, an older rate, or both — and the consulate will still apply what it prints.
The choice of where to file is a real one, with real money in it: which consulate to file at works through it.
What six months of statements have to show
This is the part that fails, and it fails on presentation rather than on wealth.
The income has to arrive. A statement showing a large balance is not evidence of monthly income. The officer is looking for six deposits, from a named payer, in six consecutive months.
The payer has to be legible. “DIRECT DEP” tells no one anything. A pension provider’s name, a benefit statement, an employer’s letter — something that connects the deposit to the source.
Every one of the six months has to clear. A quarterly distribution that lands in January and April leaves February and March under the bar. This is the single most common refusal I have seen described by applicants, and it is fixable — by waiting until you have six clean months, or by filing on the savings test instead.
Print more than you think. Six months is the minimum; twelve costs nothing and answers the follow-up question before it is asked. What the folder looks like, in the order it is asked for, is the consulate interview, and what a statement has to show line by line is proving income to a consulate.
If you are just over, or just under
Just over the line is a worse position than it feels. Exchange rates move, the UMA moves every February, and a consulate that recomputes its table between your printing the statements and attending the appointment can move the bar under you. If you are within about 10% of the threshold, either file on savings as well — bring both — or wait for a stronger six months.
Just under the line has three honest answers, and none of them is a workaround. Show household income if the second person’s is what closes the gap and they are applying as a dependent (adding a spouse or a dependent). Use the savings test if your balance genuinely averages 11,460 días de UMA over twelve months. Or don’t file yet.
There is no fourth option worth the risk. A misrepresented file is not a paperwork problem; it is the kind of problem that follows you.
What you get, and what happens next
A granted visa is a single entry, valid 180 days. It is not residency. It is permission to enter Mexico and start the real trámite, and the DOF text gives you 30 calendar days from the day you land to begin it.
The temporal card is issued initially for one year, renewable, and after four years of temporal status the conversion to permanent is open without meeting the pensioner thresholds — which is why the route comparison treats “qualify at 680 and wait” as a real strategy rather than a consolation.
Book the canje before you fly. Everything about the canje at INM Mérida is easier from a laptop at home than from a rented apartment on day 19.
Where to check this
- The multiple: DOF código 5763837, the Lineamientos. In words, not digits.
- The UMA: INEGI, republished each January, effective 1 February.
- Your dollar figure: your own consulate’s page, and no other page on the internet, including this one.
None of this is immigration advice, and no threshold met is a guarantee of a visa granted; consular discretion is real and the Lineamientos describe what you present, not what you are owed. Where the file gets genuinely complicated — when to pay a gestor is the honest accounting of that, and its answer for a straightforward income file is that you do not need one.